Localize this

Maybe your brain works this way, too: You click on a couple of the latest articles from Wired and while reading each one, it hits you, “Hey! Why couldn’t we do this article, too?”

… First, there’s the uber-simple election coverage — just pictures! This photographer captured New Yorkers standing in voting lines, thus capturing the resilient spirit of said voters. Here’s an idea, FREE OF CHARGE: Go out and take portraits of your school’s voters. Who are they? What do they look like? What motivated them to vote? Think “Humans of (Insert School Here),” except “Voters of (Your School).”

… Then there’s this national story about the internet-caused “homework gap” of students in America. Does your school have a large population of students living in rural areas? How’s their access to internet? Is it hindering their ability to learn and, sticking to theme, do their homework assignments? You may not realize it, but this may be the most consequential issue at your school. Not, you know, vaping.

Making deadline

When it comes to print deadlines and Election Night in the professional world, here’s the truth: It’s the one night a year news editors order pizza and pat themselves on the back for meeting their deadline. But guess what?

Sports editors do that every… single… night. And they don’t ask for Pizza Hut as a reward. But that’s besides the point. (Sorry! I had to get that off my chest.)

In a publishing world increasingly overtaken by design hubs, rather than local staffs, print deadlines keep getting earlier and earlier. And when you miss deadlines, you cost your publication money. So, on Election Night, very little concrete information shows up in the next morning’s newspaper, as Nieman Lab found out. Like a scan of Newseum’s top front pages of the day (and old past time), Nieman Lab found very little on the A1s of Wednesday editions. Some news outlets made a conscious decision to do this, to urge viewers to go online for it. (Yay for online!) Others did it because, well, they ran out of time.

According to front pages, voter turnout was amazing! But who knows who won their elections?

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https://customers.snosites.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/snologo-300x138.png00Tom Hutchinsonhttps://customers.snosites.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/snologo-300x138.pngTom Hutchinson2018-12-04 16:59:452018-12-04 16:59:45Stories you can localize and deadlines to meet: this week on Fresh Powder